“I must force an outcome in Berlin, or face my downfall.”
-Adolf Hitler
CELEBRATING 15 YEARS!
Original release date: September 16, 2004.
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATION FOR BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Ever been in one of those situations when you not only know that things are going to hell, but you can watch systematically as it happens? There was such a time for me a month ago, late at night. Everything was going sour and it was like an out-of-body experience where every action felt automatic and instinctive rather than responsive. Every blink of the eye, every step I took, every breath. It was numb, but serene in a strange way.
Enter the near-apocalyptic world of Der Untergang, meaning “The Downfall.” In November 1942, four young German women report to the Wolf’s Lair in Eastern Prussia, one of the strongholds of Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Greater Germanic Reich, who at this point is at the absolute height of his power. Nevertheless, Hitler is still in need of a personal secretary, and he eventually chooses the young Traudl Junge for the position. Two-and-a-half years later, on April 20, 1945, artillery guns of the Soviet Union bombard Berlin for the first time. Beneath the Reich Chancellery in the Führerbunker, Adolf Hitler awakens to receive birthday wishes from his staff- as well as the news that the Soviet armies are twelve kilometers from the center of the city. This bad news is just the first in a series of downward-spiraling events which will eventually characterize the last ten days of the Führer’s life and culminate in the death of Adolf Hitler.
This is refreshing. Foreign-language films are always interesting to do. I remember in early 2013, when I was trying out the idea of film criticism, I wrote a short, two-or-three sentence critique of this movie. Now it’s finally given a full review. But when was the last time I did a foreign-language movie? I suppose you could count Pokémon the Movie: The Power of Us, although I watched it in the dub, and the bi-lingual Ip Man 4: The Finale. But here we have the first German-language movie, and as far as those go, Der Untergang is probably the most well-known amongst non-native speakers. I suppose it depends on who you ask. Even if you ask the casual Internet user and YouTube surfer, you would probably recognize Der Untergang as the source of the countless “Hitler rants” memes. But we don’t mention that here. If you’re a keen history learner, you will know Der Untergang as a movie that tells the story of the titular downfall of the Third Reich with a high degree of effort. I miss studying history- haven’t done a unit on that topic since last semester. But here’s the thing. If you look up the Wikipedia page on the “Death of Adolf Hitler,” read the list of events and you will find that the film nearly matches them precisely. Yes, yes, one core characteristic that defines the study of history is the consideration of multiple sources of information. To tell the story of Der Untergang with acceptable accuracy, the filmmakers included eyewitness accounts from both written and spoken sources. Chief among these was Traudl Junge herself, whose written account Until the Final Hour provided much of the source for what eventually became the screenplay for Der Untergang. The film begins with a recorded interview of Junge, who died in 2002 at the age of 81.
Junge states in her interview that she was ignorant to the true scale of the Nazi atrocities at the time, and she both deeply regretted and was disturbed by her failure to look further into them. She was classified as a “young follower” by the victorious Allied forces after the fall of Berlin, and that’s how she’s portrayed in the film. Hitler’s three other secretarial candidates are bursting with excitement upon just merely meeting the Führer and aren’t the least bit bothered when they aren’t even considered for the post. Throughout the rest of the film, Junge does her job as well as she is able, continuing to attend Hitler and write important documents for him, notably his Last Will and Testament. She’s definitely disillusioned by this point, but invests what little loyalty she has left in Hitler (“Everybody is deserting him. We can’t all go, can we?”). Other Nazi figures, however, are still bursting with pride in their regime and their confidence in the final victory. These include Magda Goebbels, who is portrayed as one of Hitler’s fiercest supporters. The woman even gave her six young children names beginning with “H” as a sign of admiration for the man. It is grim and chilling to see her words and actions in this regard, no matter how loyal they are, such as when she pens a final letter to her eldest son in which she writes: “Our ideology is going down the drain and with it, everything that made life beautiful and worthwhile. After the Führer and National Socialism, there’s nothing left to live for. That’s why I brought the children too. They’re too good for the life that awaits them. God will have mercy on me if I bring them redemption myself.” Later on in the film, audiences are left to gape or grit their teeth in horror as Magda quietly and systematically kills her sedated children by crushing cyanide pills between their teeth. I don’t know which was more repulsive, the fact that she killed her children in such a way or the fact that she administered the cynaide with a mother’s gentility while Joseph Goebbels waits outside the room. This was a man who in the movie, dismissed the pointless deaths of Berlin’s defenders without pity.
Still, in the face of total defeat, there are some who carry on with sensibility in some cases and what passes for sensibility in others. Different strands of the narrative follow the remaining senior military officers such as Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, Generals Hans Krebs and Wilhelm Burgdorf, along with newly-appointed defence commanders Wilhelm Mohnke and Helmuth Weidling. These officers are soldiers and they do that job until the end, both doing their best to coordinate Berlin’s rapidly-disintegrating defences and trying to talk some sense into the maddening Adolf Hitler. Mohnke and Weidling are two supporting characters that the viewer should pay attention to. The former risks his life on the frontlines leading the defenders and ordering elderly draftees to be pulled out of action. The latter knows that the fall of Berlin is inevitable and tries to lobby for the surviving forces to break out of the encircled capital, even stating humorlessly that he would prefer to be executed rather than be put in charge of defending the city. Then you have other figures like Hermann Fegelein, assistant to Schutzstaffel Heinrich Himmler, who pleads fruitlessly for his sister-in-law Eva Braun and Hitler to flee the doomed city. Himmler himself at Hitler’s birthday reception tries to convince the Führer to leave Berlin, before secretly offering to surrender to the Allies. Albert Speer, Hitler’s leading architect and Minister of Armaments, pointedly refuses to carry out Hitler’s scorched-earth policy which would destroy what’s left of the country. SS Doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck tries to keep the defenders supplied with medical supplies as well as helping take care of the thousands of wounded. Nevertheless, no matter how dutiful or sensible or pragmatic these people are portrayed to be, we are not allowed to forget the unspeakable atrocities committed by them or the regime they so loyally served until the end.
That’s one of the biggest leaps- and controversies- that Der Untergang dared to take and make. The Nazi era is still considered a serious taboo in German culture and history, and as such any discussion or portrayal of it is done with great seriousness and respect for historical events. National Socialism was responsible for millions of deaths, including the Holocaust, yet Der Untergang portrays the mastermind of these events as, well, a man. Adolf Hitler has been described in many ways, including the banality of evil, and history remembers him primarily as a ruthless, cruel dictator. What Der Untergang does, however, is remind us that Hitler had other attributes as well. As shown by the fierce, fanatical loyalty of some of his supporters (some of whom are mere children who fight in the streets and commit suicide rather than be captured by the Soviet enemy), Hitler cultivated an immense cult of personality, with many vowing to stay in Berlin and die with him. Hitler is also portrayed as being kind to his female staff, being tender with Eva Braun, his mistress, and enjoying the company of the Goebbels children. The film even shows a jovial side to Hitler, with the dictator smiling at some points. These are by no means redemptive qualities, but it was the portrayal of this human side of Hitler that drew Der Untergang a fair bit of criticism. What this man has done is unforgettable in both the history of the world and the history of evil. Does he deserve to remembered in any other way?
Take from his portrayal what you will. In a general sense, Der Untergang was less about the downfall of the Third Reich as it was about the downfall of Adolf Hitler himself. Psychologically, it was an interesting movie that showed Hitler’s descent further into delirium and insanity, especially towards his final days. With the Nazi regime on its knees and its enemies surrounding the city, Hitler still puts on a mask of quiet, measured patience, cordially hosting guests on his birthday even as the rumble of artillery can be heard in the background. Then, as the hours and days pass, the general staff keep Hitler informed of the rapidly-deteriorating situation. First, Hitler is informed of the fates of the armies defending Berlin and then, later on, is shown on maps how the Russians have captured all but a crescent-shaped piece of territory in the center of the city, with the Soviets being barely four hundred meters from the citadel and the chancellery, under which the bunker is located. In these situations, Hitler’s “quiet” insanity and delusion are shown when he continues to issue orders to phantom armies and gives his staff out-of-this-world orders, such as when he orders Keitel to coordinate an offensive to retake the Romanian oilfields, or when he quietly tells his generals that the armies being depended on to rescue Berlin will arrive. Then, the film shamelessly shows the man’s extreme fits of insanity, rage and rambling that became the spawn of the trove of Internet memes. There are rants when Hitler acknowledges the loss of Berlin and the war. There are rants when his closest and most loyal supporters, including Hermann Göring and Himmler, desert him. Through it all, we see Hitler’s dubious disbelief that they would betray him of all people.
All praise for Bruno Ganz, the actor chosen to portray the ruthless dictator. When offered the part, Ganz was reluctant to take it and was advised by his friends not to. When he did, however, Ganz did so with commitment, preparing four months for the role. He studied a conversational recording of Hitler in order to better represent his Austrian accent. In the movie, the audience is frequently shown Hitler’s injured left hand, which he often hides behind his back, a result of what many believed was Parkinson’s disease. Ganz prepared for this too, visiting patients with the condition. This, combined with Ganz’s physical resemblance of Hitler, resulted in what I have read to be one of the most accurate portrayals of the Führer in cinema. In fact, when I first saw footage of the film when I was really young, I thought for a split second that I was watching some long-lost archival footage which had been colorized. So yes, Bruno Ganz did much for the film’s final look, feel and character. The film’s entire cast is to be praised to their work in this movie, and I know they were fully aware of what the film was trying to do. Der Untergang, as a historical piece, was not even about the Holocaust or any of the worst atrocities committed by the National Socialist regime. Even so, the cast recalled that the filming experience was extremely depressing. The cast played football among other things and took long breaks between shoots, for instance. But they worked hard and well. For some of the film’s most stoically-loyal characters, you can very well see the fanaticism in their eyes.
The film closes with a montage informing the audience as to what happened to the various characters it portrayed. Some were executed. Some were imprisoned. Many of them lived long lives in postwar Germany. Some died as recently as a few years before the film was released. These were all people. Humans, like ourselves. They had childhoods and hopes and dreams and aspirations like all of us do. And that, as it was then and continues to be now, is why the retelling of the downfall in 1945 was so sad and grim. Der Untergang remains one of my favorite foreign-language films, and one that I return to for its uncompromising storytelling and sense of realism. Sometimes I revisit it for its well-written dialog and caliber of its acting. If you haven’t seen this in a while or at all, maybe you should.
THEATRICAL RELEASE TRAILER
Picture credits: Constantin Film
Featured image credit: Fanpop
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